A crucial component of the European XFEL has taken up operation: The so-called injector, the 45-metre long first part of the superconducting particle accelerator, has accelerated its first electrons to nearly the speed of light. This is the first beam ever accelerated at the European XFEL and represents a major advancement toward the completion of the facility.

“This facilities plan is in response to a prior report, “New Science Opportunities Enabled by LCLS-II X-ray Lasers,” released in June, that details some important scientific questions that LCLS-II can be expected to contribute to, identifies areas of science it can explore, and proposes some specific experiments that it can undertake. Some of the science opportunities for LCLS-II are also listed at SLAC’s LCLS-II website.

The facilities plan, once finalized, will help to set priorities for the next five to 10 years of LCLS and LCLS-II operations.

LCLS managers are seeking feedback on the facilities plan from SLAC employees and from the international LCLS user community by Wednesday, Sept. 30, in order to incorporate this feedback for consideration by the LCLS Scientific Advisory Committee in October.”

“The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) in the United Kingdom will contribute to the European XFEL an optical laser that will generate conditions similar to the interior of Earth-like exoplanets. The £8 million (approximately 11 million euro) development and construction of the laser will be funded by STFC and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, within a grant framework overseen by Professor Justin Wark at the University of Oxford.

The laser will be manufactured, assembled, and tested in the UK by CLF and will then be shipped for the final assembly in Germany. It is part of the contributions by the Helmholtz International Beamline for Extreme Fields at the European XFEL (HIBEF) user consortium and will be installed at the High Energy Density Science (HED) instrument. The UK previously has provided funding for the Serial Femtosecond Crystallography (SFX) user consortium and has stated its intention to invest up to £30 million to become the European XFEL’s twelfth member state.”

STFC is carrying out a review to determine a strategy for the UK’s Provision of Free Electron Laser (FEL) facilities.

The purpose of the FEL strategic review is to develop:

a 15 – 20 year vision for UK FEL science;

a 7 year strategy for FEL access, UK FEL facility provision, community development, and underpinning technology/skills.

The major focus of the review will be X-rays, but it will also examine the UK community’s needs for lower energy machines and incorporate this into the strategy. The UK has committed to becoming a full member of the European XFEL facility (now under construction near Hamburg, Germany), and so this review will provide the framework for making decisions on any further FEL commitments the UK may make.

The UK FEL Forum welcomes the announcement by the UK Government on December 17th 2014 of a £30 m funding contribution to the Euro XFEL project in Hamburg, Germany. This is a great boost to UK X-ray science and hopefully will help the UK to secure a level of access needed for the national science requirements to 2020 and beyond. Whilst crucial details of the funding and the nature of the agreements reached with XFEL remain to be clarified we take this as a very positive step that demonstrates the UK Government commitment to new Photon Science.

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Please follow this link to see the final version of the response to the capital consultation exercise that was sent on behalf of the UK FEL Community. The letter was endorsed by over 400 active scientists and technologists; thank you for your support.

Please follow this link to see a case for building a UK-based X-ray Free Electron Laser facility, which it is intended to submit to the consultation on the UK’s scientific infrastructure.

In addition to making your own individual response to the BIS consultation, please could you give your endorsement to this proposal by filling in a short form on: http://ukfel.org/wordpress/?page_id=573.

In order to organise the response, please provide your endorsement by June 27th.

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